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Similarly any one, unable to see himself, but possessed by
that God, has but to bring that divine- within before his
consciousness and at once he sees an image of himself, himself
lifted to a better beauty: now let him ignore that image, lovely
though it is, and sink into a perfect self-identity, no such
separation remaining; at once he forms a multiple unity with the
God silently present; in the degree of his power and will, the
two become one; should he turn back to the former duality, still
he is pure and remains very near to the God; he has but to look
again and the same presence is there.
This conversion brings gain: at the first stage, that of
separation, a man is aware of self; but, retreating inwards, he
becomes possessor of all; he puts sense away behind him in dread
of the separated life and becomes one in the Divine; if he plans
to see in separation, he sets himself outside.
The novice must hold himself constantly under some image of the
Divine Being and seek in the light of a clear conception; knowing
thus, in a deep conviction, whither he is going- into what a
sublimity he penetrates- he must give himself forthwith to the
inner and, radiant with the Divine Intellections [with which he
is now one], be no longer the seer but, as that place has made
him, the seen.
Still, we will be told, one cannot be in beauty and yet fail to
see it. The very contrary: to see the divine as something
external is to be outside of it; to become it is to be most truly
in beauty: since sight deals with the external, there can here be
no vision unless in the sense of identification with the object.
And this identification amounts to a self-knowing, a
self-consciousness, guarded by the fear of losing the self in the
desire of a too wide awareness.
It must be remembered that sensations of the ugly and evil
impress us more violently than those of what is agreeable and yet
leave less knowledge as the residue of the shock: sickness makes
the rougher mark, but health, tranquilly present, explains itself
better; it takes the first place, it is the natural thing, it
belongs to our being; illness is alien, unnatural and thus makes
itself felt by its very incongruity, while the other conditions
are native and we take no notice. Such being our nature, we are
most completely aware of ourselves when we are most completely
identified with the object of our knowledge.
This is why in that other sphere, when we are deepest in that
knowledge by intellection, we are aware of none; we are expecting
some impression on sense, which has nothing to report since it
has seen nothing and never could in that order see anything. The
unbelieving element is sense; it is the other, the
Intellectual-Principle, that sees; and if this too doubted, it
could not even credit its own existence, for it can never stand
away and with bodily eyes apprehend itself as a visible object.
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